Does whom you work with matter? Effects of referent group gender and age composition on managers' compensation.

Abstract

Much research has examined gender and age effects on compensation, concluding that a wage gap exists favoring men and negative stereotypes against older workers persist. Although the effect of an employee's gender or age has been widely studied, little work has examined the impact of the demographic characteristics of a focal employee's immediate referent groups (e.g., subordinates, peers, or supervisors) on pay. The effect of the gender and age composition of a focal manager's subordinates, peers, and supervisor on the manager's compensation levels was investigated in a sample of 2,178 managers across a wide range of organizations and functional areas. After controlling for a number of human capital variables, results indicated that not only does a wage gap favoring men exist, but also managerial pay is lower when managers' referent groups are largely female, when subordinates are outside the prime age group, and when peers and supervisors are younger.

Women's and Men's Career Referents: How Gender Composition and Comparison Level Shape Career Expectations

“…As a result, previous studies may underestimate or ignore the impact such differences exert on career expectations. For instance, it is possible that instead of using gender composition to index similarity, respondents in previous studies use it to denote their own current status (see Major andForcey 1985, Ostroff andAtwater 2003). The larger the proportion of women, the lower the respondents' perceptions of their own current status and thus the lower their career expectations.…”

Dos principados hereditários: os jovens executivos e as demandas da carreira

“…A geração mais jovem é regida por uma diferente ética em relação ao trabalho, a ética do prazer, enquanto as gerações mais velhas têm a ética do dever como base de suas ações (OSTROFF; ATWATER, 2003).…”

Ageism and the contact hypothesis: Effects of work-related and non work-related contact on age-related stereotypes

“…These important workplace decisions were also linked to compensation. Using 40 years of age as a baseline, the more one's age differed significantly from this baseline, the lower the compensation received (Ostroff & Atwater, 2003), suggesting a curvilinear relationship between compensation and age, with middle-aged (approximately 40 years old) employees receiving the highest compensation.…”